Practicing What We Preach - Turn Five

Over the past few years, we have made a lot of noise about stock-appearing bodies and that if race cars looked more like those you might find on the street, oval track racing—specifically pavement oval track racing—would be better for it. It started with the cover of the Jan. ’10 issue titled “Back to the Future” which featured Bobby Wilberg’s ’10 Dodge Challenger Street Stock. That was 42 months ago. Between then and now, we built, tested, displayed, and raced our Project G.R.E.E.N. Camaro. That car with its EFI engine, catalytic converters on the exhaust, and E85 fuel system is still talked about today.

Much of that car was designed to be experimental, a peak into the future if you will, and as you will see in the coming year it still hovers on the very edge of the “advanced technology” that this magazine likes to report on. Admittedly, you have to look at the present in order to get to the future, which brings me to PRI 2012. Astute readers of this magazine will have already seen the ’12 Mustang Super Late Model that was showcased in the Circle Track booth at PRI in the pages of last month’s issue.

Our good friend Dick Anderson built this car and its fit and finish is second to none. In fact, all of the major logos and numbers on this car were hand painted. For those of you who didn’t get an up-close look, the Mustang features an Anderson Elite chassis from Port City Racecars, AR Bodies Ford Mustang body, a Ford Racing S374 crate motor, and a Tiger quick-change rearend. Longacre’s new gauges will light the cockpit up like a Christmas tree. The car has a specially designed set of bump springs on the front end that, during the PRI show, caught the eye of another friend of the magazine, Billy Bigley. Anderson, who is no stranger to asphalt racing, said simply that it was the nicest car he had ever built. We couldn’t agree more.

But race cars are not built to look pretty, they are built to do just one thing and that is, of course, race. So for 2013, we sat around the coffee table and decided that what we really need to do is race this car, showcase that “stock” car look, report on the chassis setups, engine performance over the course of the season, and all of the other essential racing items. In short, we will race so that you can win. And if you come looking for us we will be racing the Circle Track Mustang in the Florida United Promoter’s Series as well as cherry picking a few P.A.S.S. races when they come near our neck of the woods…Auburndale…Dillon, and who knows where else. Resident asphalt project car driver and all around rising star Dalton Zehr will handle the driving duties while Pete Epple and Bob Bolles (when he is not touring the country in the AMSOIL bus) will lend a helping hand in the pits. Heck, they might even let yours truly pick up a wrench now and again…Until next time, go fast and turn left…